


See It Coming

by strix_alba



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-01 21:26:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5221370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strix_alba/pseuds/strix_alba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“If we’re doing this, let’s be clear about one thing: I’m not gonna kiss you in front of anyone just to prove a point,” Sam says. He can be cool about this; he’s absolutely sure that this is a rule he’d insist on with any of his buddies, if they needed an emergency boyfriend. He knows exactly how far he can go before lines start to get blurred, and he’s not going to do that to himself. Fresh-out-of-the-army Sam would probably have gone for it, thrown himself into supporting Steve’s loneliness quest because fuck having feelings, anyway. But three years of therapy and one government overthrow later, he’s in a good enough place that he’s not going to fuck it up by falling for his best friend.</p><p>“Don’t worry, I’m not big on public displays of affection.  I’ve been told that’s old-fashioned,” Steve says dryly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	See It Coming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [radio_silent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/radio_silent/gifts).



> Part one of Finishing Things Month: This was intended as a birthday present for Sara, whose birthday was six months ago. Happy belated birthday!

“Yeah, but then you’d have to deal with the whole media circus shit. It’d get ugly fast,” Sam hears Barton say as he walks down the hall towards the common area of the thirty-fifth floor. “Not worth it, in my unprofessional opinion.”

“I’d figured that out,” says Steve. “It was bad even before everyone had cameras all the time.”

“Figured you liked camera phones, sir.”

“I like _my_ camera phone,” Steve corrects him. Sam stops just shy of the doorway, amused. “You think I need more layers?”

“Yes, sir. Go further down. Peel that onion. And I can see your shadow in the hallway, Falcon,” Barton adds, raising his voice. “You’re a shit spy.”

Sam strolls in like he hasn’t been hanging around listening to his friends bicker about tabloid coverage like superstars instead of superheroes. Barton is crouched on one of the couches facing the doorway, while Steve leans over the back to talk to him. Sam saunters over to them. “Hey, it’s my favorite Avenger. Oh, and Steve. You ready to eat my dirt?”

Steve looks up at him and smirks. “You really want to go there?”

“He could be good if you wanna make it believable,” Barton says to Steve. “Hey, Wilson, wanna date Captain America?”

Sam has to stop himself from doing a double-take. “Excuse me?”

“Well, Cap here was asking me why Tasha never tries to set me up, what’s my secret, can I help him, which is honestly a nice change from needing him to save my ass.” Barton swings his feet down from underneath him and slides off the arm of the chair onto the seat. 

“And?” Sam asks, as Steve hides his face behind his arm.

“Me? I’ve got a wife. Laura, she’s great, we get along much better if I’m only home a couple days a week,” Barton says rapidly, and plows right on before Sam could get in a _what the hell, Hawkeye_ , “so I figure, maybe the Captain should just see someone already. Or pretend to see someone, if he’s not into that sort of thing, which, hey, some people aren’t.”

“Right,” says Sam. He catches Steve’s gaze; Steve indicates Barton briefly with his eyes and shrugs. “I don’t want to get in the way of your planning, so Steve, you just let me know when you’re done…?”

“Oh no, we’re done here.” Steve straightens up. He runs a hand over Barton’s shoulders as he walks around the couch to Sam, a brief and oddly casual gesture. “Thanks, Clint.”

“No problem, boss. See you around,” he says as they exit the room, sounding slightly forlorn.

 

~~*~~*~~

 

It’s a nice enough day out that Sam knows he’ll end up sweating like a horse by the time they finish; he cherishes the walk from the Tower to Central Park while the air is still pleasant instead of punishingly humid. “It really bothers you that much?” he asks Steve as they cross Park Ave. 

Natasha came back a few months after he, Steve, and Bucky had moved into the newly rebuilt Tower, with her hair dyed a less dramatic shade of red and a renewed commitment to team bonding … which mostly took the form of seeing how much she could mess with everyone before they got truly annoyed. For Sam, this means rappelling in through his window in the middle of the night to curl up against his back and sleep. For Steve, it means sneaking new clothing into his closet and prodding him about his lack of commitment to bonding, team and otherwise.

From the way that Steve doesn’t meet his eyes, it’s clear that he knows what they’re talking about. “It’s not too awful,” he says. “Clint just kind of ran with it.”

“Makes sense. He’s a spy, of course his first thought is gonna be to pretend that you’re already seeing someone behind our backs,” Sam muses. “I’d’ve just said ‘hey, Nat, I’m dealing with the ego blow of living with three of the smartest scientists on the planet, not up for that right now’, personally.”

That gets a smile out of Steve. “It’s her way of fussing,” he says. “It’s sweet, but I’m too busy with the team to date, and she knows that.”

They skirt a subway vent from which billows smoke and hot air that smells like burning sewage. A group of tourists across the street stare at them, but traffic moves quickly enough that Sam isn’t afraid any of them will try to cross for a photo or autograph. He turns his attention back to the situation at hand. “Now, if it were me, I wouldn’t’ve picked me as your first choice for a significant other. People see two guys spending a lot of time together, their first thought usually isn’t ‘oh, those two are definitely banging’.”

Steve tilts his head, considering this. “I wouldn’t need everyone to think it, just Natasha. She knows I’m… you know. Open. To suggestions.”

“Point. Then it seems like Barnes would be a better choice. You’re already living together.” Sam credits himself with sounding entirely casual and not at all freaked out by the idea, because there’s no reason to find the idea as off-putting as he does. “Or hell, you could give the fake nurse a call, Sharon? You guys get along all right.”

Steve doesn’t respond right away. His cheeks flush. They walk through the entrance to Central Park, and Sam starts to scout around the clearings and trees for a reasonably empty place to warm up. The shade is a bit too cold for picnicking this time of year, and it’s early enough for dew to still carpet the grass. “Over there,” he finally decides, and they head over a hump of grey stone towards a group of pine trees.

“Bucky’s too close,” Steve says. He holds out a hand to help Sam down a smooth stretch of rock, like Sam’s a -southern belle and not a goddamn superhero. (Sam takes his hand anyway. It’s kind of cute.) 

“Yeah?”

“It’s … a complicated story.” Steve waves a hand around, and Sam resolves to ask Barnes next time their paths cross. 

In the meantime, he begins stretching. “And Sharon?”

Steve raises his arms above his head, back shifting underneath his shirt. Even from a purely aesthetic standpoint, Sam can appreciate watching Steve move — not that he lets it interfere with his own routine. “Did Nat mention that Sharon is Peggy’s granddaughter?” 

Sam lets the face that he makes speak for him.

“To be fair, I don’t think she sees that as a bad thing. Me, I’d still have to go to Peggy and tell her I was seeing her granddaughter,” says Steve. He shakes his head.

Sam chews it over while they warm up. For anyone who isn’t an Avenger, he’d vote against it in a heartbeat; terrible idea, definitely going to cross some wires, should probably find a therapist to talk to about why he thinks it’s a better idea to pretend to date a friend than it is to go out and meet people. For Steve Rogers, emotionally constipated man out of time, living and working with superheroes and rehabilitated assassins, Sam is almost tempted to think it might be a good outlet.

However, that doesn’t mean Sam has to place himself in the line of fire.

“You could ask Bruce,” Sam suggests, as they take off around the park. Steve doesn’t answer; he gives Sam a few seconds to pretend he can keep pace with Captain America before he actually starts running. Sam rolls his eyes at Steve’s (unfairly well-toned) backside as he disappears through the trees without responding to the suggestion. It’s easier to get into the zone if he’s alone in the beginning, and Steve will be back soon enough.

“What about Rhodey?” he asks, next time Steve comes around. 

“Tony might threaten me with a shotgun,” Steve huffs.

“He’s a grown man with a cybernetic supersuit. He can take care of himself!” Sam yells after his once-again-retreating back. “Seriously,” he says to a woman jogging in the opposite direction. She ignores him.

By the end of their morning jog, Steve has only lapped him five complete times, which is a marginal improvement on his previous record, and Sam has run out of mutual friends to shout at Steve every time he gets within earshot. They stop to rest just off the path to the zoo, watching school groups and old couples pass them by as the sun rises towards the treetops. Sam enjoys the aftermath just as much as the actual running: he gets to sit and appreciate the ache of his legs and lungs, the waves of heat coming off of Steve at his side; and his mind is blissfully clean of anything besides his immediate physical environment. He leans back and watches the way that Steve’s gaze roams over the park, absorbing and cataloging. Steve turns his head to meet Sam’s eyes, and his lips quirk into a questioning frown.

“Do I have something on my face?” he asks.

“Yeah, actually, there’s this big pointy — oh, no, that’s just your nose.”

“Real mature,” Steve says with a lazy grin.

They lapse back into content silence for a few minutes more. Sam’s mind starts to wander from Central Park back to the Avengers Tower, and whether he’s still got orange juice or whether he’ll need to hike over to the bodega on the way home. (Good food is obscenely expensive in Manhattan, but one of Sam’s conditions for the move was a food budget funded by the Avengers’ bank account.)

“It could be fun,” Steve says, apparently to no one in particular.

Sam looks at him sidelong. “Adopting a class of elementary school kids?” He jerks his head at the flock marching past in uniform.

“Seeing if Nat will figure it out,” Steve says. “I’m gonna hold off on kids.”

“You know, messing with your friends isn’t nearly as much of a risk as bringing down the US intelligence apparatus,” Sam comments.

“You don’t say,” Steve drawls.

“Shut up, man, you know what I mean. I’ll do it, I just didn’t want you to think I’m the only one who’d help you out if you’re that desperate to stay lonely,” says Sam. “So do you have some sort of plan, or were you gonna ask someone out and hope for the best?”

Steve just looks sheepish. 

Sam braces his hands on his knees, cracking his back. “Man, you superheroes are all the same.”

The sun comes out from behind the clouds and illuminates the pigeons slowly bobbing closer to their bench. Sam kicks out at them, and they go flapping away. 

“Hey, Sam,” says Steve.

He raises his eyebrows. “Yeah?”

“I might need some help with this one,” he says.

Sam grins and holds out his hand. Steve accepts and gives it a shake. “I’m glad you asked,” says Sam.

 

~~*~~*~~

 

Steve doesn’t quite trust JARVIS not to watch them if they talk about this at the Avengers Tower, so Sam suggests that they go out to lunch on the upper east side, where they can wander among the throngs of tourists. (Sam still hasn’t managed to figure out a way to tactfully inform Steve that he’d blend a lot better if he wore t-shirts that actually fit him.) They get a half-dozen samosas from the falafel cart in front of the Museum of Natural History and walk around the area, studying tour groups.

Sam spends a couple of minutes telling Steve about his friend’s new service dog and how adorable it is, until Steve’s shoulders drop and he’s making more than a half-second of eye contact at a time. He even laughs as he tells Sam that Tony talks about his robots like Sam’s talking about therapy dogs, and is so absorbed that he doesn’t even notice the kids staring at them as they pass the school bus entrance to the museum.

Sam lets the conversation trail off as they come around towards the back of the Metropolitan. Some people, they’ll start talking if he lets the silence drag out for long enough. Steve is a stubborn son of a bitch and will do no such thing. Sam likes hanging out in silence with Steve, but he’s also aware of why they’re here, and how dumb he’d feel if he couldn’t broach the subject.

“If we’re doing this, let’s be clear about one thing: I’m not gonna kiss you in front of anyone just to prove a point,” Sam says. He can be cool about this; he’s absolutely sure that this is a rule he’d insist on with any of his buddies, if they for some reason needed an emergency boyfriend. He knows exactly how far he can go before lines start to get blurred, and he’s not going to do that to himself. Fresh-out-of-the-army Sam would probably have gone for it, thrown himself into supporting Steve’s loneliness quest because fuck having feelings, anyway. But three years of therapy and one muckraking operation later, he’s in a good enough place that he’s not going to fuck it up by falling for his best friend.

“Don’t worry, I’m not big on public displays of affection. I’ve been told that’s old-fashioned,” Steve says dryly.

“By Natasha?”

“By Natasha.”

Sam chuckles, cringing at himself — overreacting because he’s that relieved that Steve is on board with the no-kissing plan. “That’s the one thing I’d be okay coming back into style. Nobody wants to see that shit.”

Once they’ve established that their game plan isn’t going to include making out in Natasha’s personal pantry until they are “discovered”, they can get to work on the practical details. They’ve covered the perimeter of the museum, so Sam directs them back down Columbus Avenue.

“Well, what are you like with people you like?” Sam asks him.

“Honestly?” Steve ducks his head with a sheepish smile. “I never know what to do with my hands. Or any other part of me. I used to fidget a lot around Bucky when we were teenagers. Peggy, not as much. Once we started working together, I always had something I was supposed to be doing.” His face grows fond with memory. Sam pictures him bent over a map, pointing and moving little plastic army men while he glows at the vague figure of a white woman with brown hair. 

“What about you?” Steve asks.

“Been a while. I remember there was this girl I used to see out jogging all the time — me jogging, her walking her dogs. I’d try so hard to impress her, ended up almost tripping over one of the dogs.” A woman catches Sam with the corner of her very large purse, shoving him into Steve. He scowls at her back. “Real nice,” he says, even though she won’t hear it. To Steve, he says, “Now? I don’t know. I used to be real into the traditional stuff, you know, dinner and a movie, but I haven’t gone on a date since I joined the army. I’m not really the same guy anymore, you know?”

Steve gives him an understanding smile. “Guess you’ll just have to use your imagination.” 

“Uh-huh. Well, as your new imaginary boyfriend, I say we probably go on long, romantic walks through Chinatown. Maybe go to some modern art museums. That sound okay to you?”

“Nah. If I was going steady with you, we’d be going to dance halls a couple times a month — when the world doesn’t need us to defend it. Maybe one of those bars that they’ve got now, with the cowboys and the leather.”

Sam chokes on nothing. He feels the back of his neck grow warm. “Seriously?”

“Sure, why not?” Steve shoves his hands into his pockets and gives him a soft, concerned look; only when Sam sees the twitch at the corner of his mouth does he realize that it’s a joke. 

He punches Steve in the shoulder. “What was that Barton was saying, about avoiding a media circus?”

“Guess you’re right.” 

Steve sounds regretful. Sam starts to picture Steve at one of those clubs, immediately purges his mind of impure thoughts, and changes the subject. “So how do we start dating? Got to get a good background going in case anyone asks.”

“I’m not pretending to see you. I’m pretending to pretend to not be seeing you, so maybe Nat will buy it for more than two seconds.”

“You don’t think she’d buy us being an item?” Sam spreads his arms wide and makes a face of mock offense.

Steve lowers his chin and smiles at Sam. “I don’t think she’d believe it if we suddenly started going steady. She knows me, I didn’t even kiss the last person I — wanted to kiss — until I was about to die. And then I waited seventy years to do it again.”

Sam winces internally, but Steve’s voice is steady and doesn’t catch on the words, so he lets it be. “Fair point, Captain American Moral Values. My point is, it’s got to be something that people can look back on and think _ah, yes, that makes sense now._ You see what I’m saying?”

Steve purses his lips. He pauses to look thoughtfully up at the skyline, and nearly gets mowed down by a small, brightly-dressed woman walking past on her cell phone. Steve snorts. “Twenty-five years I lived here, you think I’d know not to stop walking in the middle of the sidewalk.” 

Sam grabs his arm and pulls him along. “Now, just saying, if I was dating you, I’d be excited, all right? I’m gonna have to try real hard to act normal around you, so don’t be surprised if I slip up sometimes.”

Steve squares his shoulders like he’s facing a goddamn firing squad. Sam likes to think that the prospect of dating himself isn’t quite as bad as all that — sure, he’s got his fair share of issues, but he’s pretty much got a handle on them these days. “I can live with that. I’ll think of something embarrassing and pretend it’s happening right then, when you ‘forget’,” says Steve.

“Sounds like a solid plan to me,” Sam tells him, and it does…

…until he gets to see what it looks like in action. By common agreement, the team eats together at least three times a month, all nine Avengers and their family sitting down at a long table like Thanksgivings growing up in Sam’s house, and with even more food. Sam takes care to sit next to Steve. He sticks close half the time anyway, when he’s not on Barnes’ other side or down on the end where Tony and Rhodey talk mechanical engineering that makes his head spin but also sometimes includes talking about Sam’s wings, and that’s always cool. So the seating isn’t unusual; but when he reaches behind Steve to get Barnes’ attention, and then lets his arm rest around Steve’s shoulders for a moment, that’s something new.

“My point is, he didn’t do anything that other artists hadn’t already done — not in terms of …” Steve flushes from his cheeks to his ears and trails off, staring at Pepper Potts. “In terms of content, but, um, meaning.”

Sam withdraws his arm. “Pass a man the chili, would you?” he says to Bucky, pretending to ignore Steve entirely.

Bucky gives him a look. “Say the magic word.”

“James Barnes is a magnificent motherfucker who can kick my ass at chess,” Sam recites, and as soon as the chili bowl is in his hands, adds, “but only because I let him to boost his fragile ego.”

“Are you talking about this idiot?” Steve elbows Bucky. “Have you met him?”

“They met recently on the field of battle,” Thor explains. “A most amusing game of strategy, although less complex than the version that my brother and I played in our youth.”

“There’s a game like chess on Asgard, but it’s played simultaneously in three dimensions,” Jane offers, swallowing a spoonful of mashed potatoes. “The mechanics of the gameboard are so cool; it has a locally modified gravitational pull so that the pieces stay in place in these little spherical — spheroid, I guess — matrices instead of just flat squares.”

“Yeah, and he forgot we only play in two dimensions like peasants,” Sam murmurs to Steve. “I may have to kowtow to Barnes for a week, but Thor’s gonna carry me bridal style to see my grandma next week.”

Steve cracks up, and Sam grins, pleased by the way that his face goes pink. When he pulls away, he feels Natasha’s eyes on him, but by the time he looks properly, she’s shifted her attention back to Bruce.

 

~~*~~*~~

 

Part two of Steve’s plan to fuck with Natasha, and Sam’s plan to let Steve readjust to normal human relationships, consists of going on dates.

Sort of.

“Sam Wilson, just the man I was looking for.” Tony claps him on the shoulder. “I’m going to update the sensory input modules on the Mark III Exo for you. You got a couple hours on Saturday?”

“As long as it’s not after seven,” Sam has to tell him.

“What’s happening at seven that’s more important than being able to control human flight with your back muscles?” Tony demands.

Sam shrugs. “Football?” he tries.

Tony gives him a scandalized look. Sam ignores it. “I’ll be down in your workshop before then, okay?”

“Fine,” Tony grumbles.

At six-thirty on Saturday night, Steve texts Sam to tell him that he’s at the New York Public Library. Sam smiles at his phone. At seven, Dummy helps him out of the sensory apparatus that Tony strapped him into. He changes into a halfway decent-looking shirt and jeans, and sets out to meet Steve downtown.

When he gets to the library, he finds Steve, not buried in the comics as he’d expected, but crouched down on one of the low couches in the Children’s Room, surrounded by a half-dozen small children and their  
caretakers. He doesn’t see Sam at first, too busy figuring out the best way to show everyone the pages of the book in his hands.

“ _Did you ever hear of Mickey_ ,” he reads. “ _How he heard a racket in the night, and shouted, ‘Quiet down there!’_ ”

Sam walks over and leans against the wall adjacent to the couches. One o the adults gives him a fleeting glance, brow knitting. _I’m with him_ , he mouths, pointing at Steve.

Steve looks up as he turns the page.

“It’s the cooks!” cries one girl. 

“They gonna stir him up and make him into pancakes, aren’t they, Mister America?” says another.

“We’ll find out,” Steve starts to say. 

“Of course not. He’s going to dance with ‘em,” the first girl interrupts.

Sam catches Steve’s eye and waves. Steve gives him a resigned look; Sam holds up his palms and slides down against the wall into a squat. Steve smiles at him sheepishly.

“All right, all right. Do you want to hear the rest of the story, or are you going to read it yourselves?” he asks the kids, and Sam makes himself more comfortable, warmth diffusing through his body as he watches Steve’s clumsy attempts to read a book to a group of kids.

Steve extricates himself from the impromptu reading session once he’s finished the book, and they stroll out of the library to explore the surrounding area. “What did you decide we’re doing?” Sam asks.

“Art gallery in Brooklyn,” says Steve.

“Sure. But what _non_ -date thing are we doing?” 

Steve shoves his hands into his pockets and looks up at the street lights. “Something you said reminded me. I looked up a couple of the chorus girls I toured with back in my USO days.”

“And?” Sam raises his eyebrows.

“Couple of them are still kicking. We’re gonna meet Carol and Kate at Shanghai Joe’s on fifty-second. Probably gonna be late, but it’s for a good cause. They’ll live.”

They’re late. Two cotton-headed women well into their eighties are waiting for them at a table downstairs, flipping through a small photo album laid on top of the menu. Steve introduces them to Sam; he seems a little startled to see them in person, but by the time the waiter arrives to take their order, he’s gotten over the (visible) initial shock of seeing old friends looking — well, _old_ — and is grinning again, admiring family photos and nodding along to their stories. Sam mostly sat back and listened to their conversation, asking for clarification or for one of them to explain the events to which they made reference.

Afterwards, back at the Tower, they shake hands outside the elevator and say goodnight. Sam thinks that as far as fake dates go, he can’t think of any way it could have gone better. He strips out of street clothes and turns out the light. As he drifts off to sleep, images from the evening run through his mind: Steve making a face at something a kid said while he was reading aloud, Carol’s imitation of Steve’s face when he walked in on the chorus girls changing in ’43, and Steve weeping with laughter as he told Sam about defending their fake Hitler at a bar in Illinois. (“He thought they were angry at him for paying with ripped bills; I said, o one gives a damn, Butterball, just take off your moustache before I gotta punch you out myself.”)

Sam falls asleep smiling.

 

~~*~~*~~

 

Sam has managed to escape into the rafters amid a hail of darts coming from his five and two; he winches in his wings and hauls himself up onto the lowest metal beam. He pauses for half a second to balance himself on the frame and then leans back just enough to jump for the beam over his head, eighteen inches from the ceiling. He and the rig fit as long as he lies flat on his belly and pulls himself along through the sticky film of dust between him and the cold metal. The darts pause, presumably working out where he’s got to. At the next point where the beam connects, Sam takes a deep breath and prepares himself to breaks cover for the time it takes him to swing around from one side of the vertical beam to the other.

“On your ten and level, Falcon,” Barton says in his ear. “You need cover?” 

“Nah, I’m gonna come around the other side. Green guy?”

“Still chugging along with the container,” says Bruce. “Headed down the maintenance corridor towards the exit, ETA … two minutes?”

“Any tails?”

“None that I can see.” Bruce sounds slightly out of breath. “Just — oh, shit,” he says, accompanied by a great crashing, and then his mic is cut off by interference.

“Go get him, I’ll cover you,” says Barton. Over to Sam’s left, he hears boots thumping loudly over metal, as Barton makes a deliberately clumsy attempt to jump between I-beams. This time, it’s bright orange pellets that spray from under a makeshift bunker of filing cabinets and tables. Sam shimmies off the beam and braces himself for the wings to come out; then he lets himself fall backwards and flips over in midair before he can hit the ground — he gets a little closer than he’d like, and his stomach swoops as he pulls out of the loop, but this is what he lives for, the adrenaline rush of soaring through an empty warehouse and trusting his teammates to watch his back while he watches theirs.

The wall comes up faster than he’s expecting, and his landing is inelegant; he tucks in his wings and his arms and does a forward roll through the door where Bruce had escaped a few minutes prior, but stumbles getting up. When he gets to his feet, his eyes focus on the three figures at the end of the hallway: two tall and broad, a small and slightly hunched figure wedged between them.

“Hulk smash?” Sam says hopefully.

“Dr. Banner has relinquished the container,” Thor tells him, displaying the object of their pursuit: a snowglobe with a miniature Avengers Tower and tiny aliens floating through the gel around it.

Sam throws up his hands. “Come on, Bruce!”

Bruce shrugs. “He wooed me with his triple-helix TK Asgardian genome. I couldn’t say no.”

Sam hears Rhodey before he sees him, the muted roaring of his suit echoing down the hallway a few seconds before the far door opens and daylight silhouettes War Machine and Iron Man. “Okay, note that in the training log: Dr. Banner will sell us all out for new genetic material to study,” Rhodey says, flipping up his visor.

“Are we officially taking a break now?” Sam asks.

They all look at Steve, who looks at Tony, who holds out his hands palms up. “I could do this all day, but I’ve had four cups of coffee already today.”

“You ought to keep caffeine patches in your suit so you don’t crash if you get stranded,” Steve says mildly.

“You think I don’t? It’s like he doesn’t even know me,” Tony says to Rhodey.

Sam touches his mic. “Uh, Hawkeye and Green Guy, I think we’re breaking for lunch.”

“Jesus Christ, Tasha!” he hears Barton reply, followed by a thump. “Let a man die in peace already.”

 

~~*~~*~~

 

After everyone has been gathered together, and their positions at time of pause have been logged for next time, they go out to lunch at a restaurant along the Hudson River, near the warehouse that Tony had rented for the purpose. They get a back room, and go over tactics for next time. Steve and Natasha bounce the bulk of the discussion between them, though Rhodey and Thor chime in every now and again. (Sam thinks it’s probably unfair to still be surprised that Thor is a skilled tactician, even if his one-on-one combat strategies skew towards glorious-but-probably-fatal.)

Once the meeting is over, and autographs have been given to their waiters, they board the train back downtown (Sam’s idea, because private jet and wings and Thor are convenient but have left him feeling disconnected from the millions of people living in the city with him.) Tony and Rhodey carry metal suitcases, Barton is packing a padded guitar case full of arrows, and Natasha has her and Bucky’s Nerf guns in a gym bag. Sam picks a window seat facing the river, and hides his mouth with his hand to conceal his pleasure when Steve slides into the seat across from him with a sketchpad in one hand and a pencil in the other.

“I haven’t been upstate in a while,” Steve says. His eyes dart between the window and the paper, pencil scribbling jerkily against the paper. “I forget how short it is. Pretty, but short.”

“You come up at all before the war?” Sam asks.

“Nah. Didn’t have the time or the money, or anywhere to go.”

The train rumbles down the river, past rotting piers and huge houses on the opposite shore. Sam mostly watches buildings and trees flicker by, with occasional glances at Steve to see how he’s doing. 

The conductor gives them a once-over when she comes around to punch their tickets. “You remind me of Captain America,” she says to Steve. “You’ve got the same face shape.”

Steve looks down and chuckles. (The jury’s still out on whether or not he knows how sweet it makes him look, and Sam is afraid to ask in case he accidentally creates a monster.) “Thanks. I’ve heard that once or twice,” Steve tells the conductor.

Sam rolls his eyes, but Steve is still smiling faintly after she leaves.

 

~~*~~*~~

 

The next Saturday, they take the train back out of the city to go to an art gallery in Cold Spring that Sam suggested on JARVIS’s prompting. The gallery is small, set in a refurbished house whose rooms are painted in bold reds and purples that give a strange cast to the polished metal sculptures dotted around the room on platforms. Steve and Sam stand in the corner by a large, thickly-painted canvas, drinks and crackers in hand.

“You asked an AI to find art I’d like?” Steve asks Sam.

Sam shoves his hands in his pockets. “Sure, why not? He’s a smart guy.”

“So’s Pepper. She’s even a real human being,” Steve points out, grinning. “JARVIS is good for a lot of things — keeping my shower temperature steady, telling me when Clint’s coming down sick and trying to hide it — but …” He trails off and sweeps his cup of ginger ale around to indicate the room at large.

“Missed the mark on this one?” Sam guesses, tightness dragging at his chest suddenly. He’s not worried that Steve won’t like him or anything — he’s past the desperation of high school — but it would have been nice to continue his winning streak of proposing only cool things to do together (have breakfast on the lam, break into Fort Knox, double back through Colorado instead of following Barnes up into the Rockies, tour the Upper East Side while eating Indian food).

Steve gives him a wry look, like he’s weighing him up and finds him amusingly wanting.

“All right, all right, ask Ms. Potts about art next time.” Sam shrugs and pretends to squint at the spiraling sculpture next to him. “So how about those hiking signs we saw on the way over here? Can’t go wrong with recreational stomping around through the woods.”

“Back in my day, when we went stomping around through the woods, we called it ‘going behind enemy lines’,” Steve says.

“I know, I know, you’re old.” Sam grins. “Let’s blow this pop stand, and then we can talk about going behind enemy lines, all right?”

“Sounds good,” says Steve. He knocks back his drink and goes to drop the cup in the trash in one smooth move; and Sam would be a little impressed, if Steve had not immediately followed it up with a look of surprise and a huge belch.

“Captain America, everyone,” Sam says under his breath. “Our hero.”

 

~~*~~*~~ 

 

Pretending to be Steve Rogers’ secret boyfriend isn’t something that occupies Sam’s every waking moment. He still has VA meetings, and flight exercises, and every so often he meets up with Riley’s sister, who lives in Jersey and looks like her brother with softer features. There are team exercises, and Friday nights out with Rhodey and Bucky and Rhodey’s army buddies. But there are also, now, the nights that he spends exploring New York City with Steve, pretending that they’re out on a date while they’re actually chatting with the Albanian waiter outside a restaurant in Little Italy, or judging postmodern artwork in museums, or playing a two-on-seven game of basketball with a bunch of kids in Washington Heights until the last of the daylight fades from the blocky skyline. They leave the Tower separately and arrive back separately, most of the time, and Sam would be proud of himself for their successful secrecy were it not for the fact that it seems to be staying a little _too_ much of a secret.

“Did Cap ever follow up on that thing we were totally not talking about?” Barton asks Sam one day over lunch (two-dollar pizza eaten while sitting on the roof of Barton’s old apartment building, because Barton understands that sometimes Michelin-tier restaurants or weird homegrown organic food just doesn’t cut it).

“Who wants to know?” Sam asks.

Barton shrugs. “Not that it’s any of my business; just, sometimes I wonder if I’ve ever even had a good idea, and I figure, if I want to know for sure, I need some statistics, and this is one thing I can follow up on …” He stares wistfully out at the Brooklyn skyline. 

Sam feels bad for all of the two seconds that it takes for him to realize Barton is being a dramatic shit. “Well, I can’t say it’s earth-shattering, or anything, but it seems to make Steve feel better.”

“Yeah?” Barton smiles.

“And it means he gets out and about, so it makes me feel better, too,” Sam admits. 

“You don’t bitch and moan about Bruce being a shut-in,” says Barton.

Sam shifts uncomfortably on his perch. “I can only handle so many people’s problems at once, and Bruce’s got Pepper and Tony to drag him around.”

“Sure, man,” says Barton. He crumples his empty Coke can. “Hey, bet you I can get this in the trash can from over here.”

Sam eyes up the distance between them and the trash can near the rooftop access in the middle of the building. “No way. I’m not gonna bet against the carnie being able to hit a target.”

“There’s a crossbreeze!”

“Which I’m sure you can account for.”

Barton tosses the can backwards over his head, facing the city skyline. It bounces off the rim of the garbage can and clatters on the concrete rooftop. “See? You’d’ve won,” he says. “Could’a made big bucks.”

“Whatever you say, spy,” Sam says.

 

~~*~~*~~

 

If Barton can’t tell that they’re up to something, then clearly, they’re being too subtle, Steve says, the next time they’re out on their own. “And Nat wanted to know if I’d go speed dating with her and Bucky. I think she’s decided that he’s functional enough to start having friends again.” His baseball cap and sunglasses doing nothing to mask the clear delight on his face, and Sam cracks a grin of his own.

“You sure? ‘Cause I heard them talking the other day, and I think they’re both working on new covers,” Sam says. The conversation had been multilingual, but there was enough English mixed in that Sam is pretty sure he got the gist.

“Nah, he’s told me about that, they’re trying to get that HONY guy to take as many different photos of them as possible.” Steve laughs. “I kind of feel bad for the guy.”

“Okay, fine. So I’m assuming you’re not on board with speed dating?” Sam crosses his arms.

Steve shrugs. “Not for me. And, honestly?” He gives Sam a crooked smile. “I kind of like pulling the wool over her eyes. Just got to let her know that’s what’s going on, that’s all.”

“Yeah, well, I’m still not kissing you in front of her. Or behind her. Or at all.” Not that it would be the end of the world — especially not when Steve is leaning against Sam so he doesn’t crowd their neighbors in the cheap seats, and Sam is sun-warmed and relaxed in the seventh inning of a minor league game in whose outcome he has zero emotional investment. It’d be easy, right now … but it would complicate things once the game is over, and Sam enjoys spending time with Steve too much to mess with that.

Steve adjusts the brim of his cap. “Oh, of course not,” he says, dragging Sam out of his thoughts and back to a present where they are pretending to be on a date and kissing is embarrassingly far out of the equation. “That’d be too obvious. I’ll think of something — you’ve done most of the planning so far.”

Sam nods, but now that he’s mentioned it, his position against Steve’s arm isn’t quite as comfortable, and he’s afraid to shift away in case it becomes noticeable, so he changes the subject. “You know, I don’t even know which team I’m supposed to be rooting for here? They all look the same, this far away,” and Steve is too distracted by his baseball illiteracy to pursue that line of thinking any further.

 

~~*~~*~~


End file.
